Reuters Select: Barclays tries to whistle a new tune

Reuters Staff

4 Min Read

Barclays tries to whistle a new tune

Barclays chief executive Jes Staley’s attempts to unmask a whistleblower will be a test case for a regime put in place last year that aims to hold bank bosses to account if they fail to defend reinforced standards. At stake is not just the image of a bank whose chief promised to reform its aggressive culture but also the efficacy of the fledgling Senior Managers Regime, which aims, among other things, to protect those who risk their jobs bringing wrongdoing to light. Reuters’ Lawrence White and Huw Jones report.

Hours after the truck attack that killed four people in Stockholm, Muslim taxi driver Abdi Dahir found himself in a choke-hold from a man sitting in the back seat. Struggling to breathe, Dahir, who moved to Sweden from Somalia as a child, felt he could die at the hands of an angry passenger who blamed the attack on the country’s openness to Muslim immigrants. Anti-Muslim anger is testing Sweden’s liberal traditions after a man hijacked a truck and rammed it into a pedestrian mall, and the country is bracing for rising intolerance and hate crimes as it tightens its immigration policies. Reuters’ Johan Ahlander and Mansoor Yosufzai report.

Rival approaches are emerging from the White House, Senate and other quarters in Congress, Reuters’ David Morgan reports. Congressional aides, lobbyists and analysts say the changing focus could delay passage of a tax bill until late 2017 or 2018, potentially foiling Republican efforts to score a legislative victory for President Donald Trump by August, following last month’s failed bill to repeal and replace Obamacare health insurance.

Washington has billed Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Indonesia next week as a booster for the Strategic Partnership between the world’s second- and third-largest democracies, but a raft of bilateral tensions from a perceived U.S. bias against Muslims to Indonesia’s disputes with U.S. companies, could sap the good will from his trip. Reuters’ Kanupriya Kapoor and Fransiska Nangoy report.

A diamond-studded Rolex at 40 percent off the $34,000 retail price or an Omega Speedmaster Moonphase for less than $10,000? The increasing prevalence of such deals highlights the predicament in which luxury watchmakers find themselves. With sales falling, more unsold watches are finding their way from official retail networks to online platforms where they are often offered at steep discounts. Swiss watchmakers say they loathe this “gray market” because high discounts hurt their prestige, but as Reuters’ Silke Koltrowitz reports, it’s moving the merchandise.